In reading and watching movie reviews around the web (most notably tgwtg.com) one common complaint people will have in movies is when a hero has the villian supposedly defeated and doesn't kill them. Saying it would make more sense to just shoot them instead of giving them a chance to escape/counter attack.

And here I thought they never killed the villain cause they didn't want to be unemployed.

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I used to say I live my life a quarter mile at a time and I think that's why we were brothers- because you did, too. No matter where you are, whether it's a quarter mile away or half way across the world. The most important thing in life will always be the people in this room. Salute mi familia. You'll always be with me... And you'll always be my brother.

The other day, I read a few of their lists regarding unexplained things and mysteries and such. I was forced to draw the conclusion that the writers on that site are a bunch pure-bred idiots that have gotten very good at making themselves appear intelligent. cracked.com could just as easily be called "illogical.com" or "takingthingswaytooseriously.com."

Which leads us to this "article," and I do use the term loosely.

IT'S A MOVIE, you cracked bunch of morons! STAR WARS is not some deep metaphor for the human psyche...it's a simple story about a ragtag bunch of fugitives (ooops, sorry) defeating the Evil Empire. How long would the movie be if the Stormtroopers wiped everyone out in the first volley? It's not about REALISTIC story telling; it's space-opera fantasy story telling.

Maybe they should try applying this "can't do it if they look too human" human psychology to a movie like ROBOCOP (or any of about 2300 violent films) where the bad guys had NO TROUBLE looking their victims in the eye while pulling the trigger...after torture and joking about it, too. In other words, um, movies don't follow real life ALL the time.

Geez, I wish you guys would start tagging your subject lines with "from cracked.com" so I could more easily avoid reading the threads...

In reading and watching movie reviews around the web (most notably tgwtg.com) one common complaint people will have in movies is when a hero has the villian supposedly defeated and doesn't kill them. Saying it would make more sense to just shoot them instead of giving them a chance to escape/counter attack.

You can read it for yourself, but it basically says that killing another human being isn't as easy as it seems.

I've always considered Han had a lucky horseshoe (or four-leaf clover) hiding in his "darkside" and those Stormtrooper misses was based upon his luck, actually in Empire Strikes Back C-3PO kept referring the odds of every action Han was doing... Becasue he was a very lucky man... And talk about luck... Not only the Princess falls in love with Han but the only other suitor happens to be her brother... talk about luck.

In reading and watching movie reviews around the web (most notably tgwtg.com) one common complaint people will have in movies is when a hero has the villian supposedly defeated and doesn't kill them. Saying it would make more sense to just shoot them instead of giving them a chance to escape/counter attack.

I dunno, guess it depends on which movie and what the circumstances are. Without a specific example, I can't respond to the premise. You quote a Star Wars article, but I don't recall any scene in the original trilogy where they have a bad guy dead to rights are like, "No, I won't kill you!" except near the climax where Luke refuses to kill Vader and that has a good reason behind it, Luke realize who's becoming Vader's replacement if he succumbs to the Dark Side but other than that... (shrugs)

What gets me is when in movies (and especially comic books) where you have a villain who's proved time and time again that he (or she) is an unredeemable killing machine and the hero not only doesn't kill them but often goes OUT OF HIS WAY to save the villain. (Or they conveniently find some way to just disable the villain so killing isn't necessary.) This REALLY makes no sense when you're dealing with a character who, in the past, has show NO compunctions about killing their enemies (like Wolverine for example.)

Course, when it comes to comics, we know the REAL reason the heroes don't kill: if they did, they wouldn't be able to reuse the bad guys for more stories further down the road.

Cracked, I offer this perfectly valid and most likely correct reason why the Stormtroopers had such bad aim: Star Wars would have ended pretty damn quickly if they were any good with their weapons. It's purely for the sake of story-telling. Hell, that's why most things happen the way they do in fiction. Reality rarely behaves in such a way that it makes for tales as compelling as the ones we make up.

the guys at Cracked.com are just a bunch of idiots, the reason why the hero doesn't just kill the villain is because if the hero did, how is he different then the villain? when it comes to Star Wars, the Stormtroopers didn't have as much experience shooting in their turf than they would have on the victim's turf, and also because it was a shocking reality that they would be fighting on Death Star because, how could anyone find Death Star? All this was just a circumstance of misfortune reality to them, probably thinking that these guys were survivors from previous attacks, so their mind set isn't really focused. that, or their masks are too constricting.

but getting back to the question, can you see a hero, like Batman or Superman, killing a villain? they support justice, and killing them, they would be murderers then.

the guys at Cracked.com are just a bunch of idiots, the reason why the hero doesn't just kill the villain is because if the hero did, how is he different then the villain? ...but getting back to the question, can you see a hero, like Batman or Superman, killing a villain? they support justice, and killing them, they would be murderers then.

Precisely. Because then he would not be a 'hero'. It's the same old time-honoured "Black Hats/White Hats" conundrum: the 'good guys' are constrained by the rules and the 'bad guys' are "the bad guys" because they do whatever the heck they want.

I think the rise of the anti-hero clouded the issue somewhat. It's a movie, folks. It might be momentarily satisfying to see The Lone Ranger shoot an evil wrong-doer in the back, but afterwards what and how we think of him is irrevocably changed. No more white hat. I don't care if it is more practical or even realistic (and I might debate that one: we NEED heroes who set an example by adhering to standards of personal integrity: real people DO manage it in real life: it is simply the HARD way), it should not be necessary. Part of the ultimate triumph of 'good' is getting there, against apparently insurmountable odds, without 'cheating'! Isn't that why we admire and applaud the good guys?

Ah, yes, the modern concept of the anti-hero (the original concept being a character who simply lacked heroic qualities, as in an everyday sort of person, but was the protagonist anyway). I've always found it interesting how some of them are so violent and depraved that the only way we know they're the protagonist is because we're TOLD that they are or they're marginally less villainous than the people they're fighting.

Anyway, Star Wars was inspired by old sci-fi serials and thus borrowed quite a bit from them. Did the mooks ever actually hurt the heroes (unless it provided for some drama) in those? Not really. Besides, it's hard to keep going with a movie when your main characters die within the first three shootouts thanks to competent mooks.